Massachusetts proposals to force church disclosures
Steven Jamar
sjamar at law.howard.edu
Wed Aug 17 16:30:15 PDT 2005
we get into definitional things here in a big hurry. affirmative
action as practiced by most businesses is widely supported -- seeking
out qualified minorities and under represented groups.
affirmative action as pilloried in caricature by the right -- hiring
unqualified people for positions because of minority status (which
has happened and still does) -- leads to quite a different result in
peoples' attitudes.
I don't have the research on this at hand, however.
steve
On Aug 17, 2005, at 7:25 PM, Scarberry, Mark wrote:
> A one minute Google search (all I have time for right now) turned
> up a 1995 Washington Post article that includes the following
> paragraph:
>
>
> "The survey [a 'poll of 1,524 randomly selected Americans'] found
> that affirmative action, like most racial issues, sharply divides
> whites and blacks. And within communities of color, a debate about
> affirmative action also rages: Nearly half of all African Americans
> interviewed said they opposed affirmative action programs giving
> preference to minorities."
>
>
> See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/affirm/
> stories/aa032495.htm.
>
>
> Would Michael argue that the poll was anomalous or that attitudes
> have changed in the ten years since the poll was taken?
>
>
> I raise this point not really to argue over the views of African
> Americans about affirmative action, but because Michael suggests
> that Justice Thomas's thought is not in any sense representative of
> African American thought.
>
>
> Even if most African Americans disagree with Justice Thomas on
> affirmative action, his views may, on many other issues, resonate
> with a majority of African Americans. I worked with two real estate
> agents in Los Angeles this summer who are African American women.
> Their strongly held views on Establishment Clause issues - e.g.,
> Newdow and the removal of the tiny cross from the Los Angeles
> County seal - were much closer to those of Justice Thomas than to
> the views of the strict separationists on the Court.
>
>
> Mark S. Scarberry
>
> Pepperdine University School of Law
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Newsom Michael [mailto:mnewsom at law.howard.edu]
> Sent: Wednesday, August 17, 2005 2:55 PM
> To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
> Subject: RE: Massachusetts proposals to force church disclosures
>
>
> I think that the only thing that one can say for sure is that
> Clarence Thomas and Ward Connerly do not support affirmative
> action. Polling data and studies of the political views of African
> Americans tend to show that the vast majority of black people in
> this country support affirmative action. One cannot assume that
> either of these two people are in any sense representative of
> African American thought, particularly when all of the available
> evidence points to the contrary.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Sanford Levinson [mailto:SLevinson at law.utexas.edu]
> Sent: Wednesday, August 17, 2005 11:43 AM
> To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
> Subject: RE: Massachusetts proposals to force church disclosures
>
>
> Vince Koven writes:
>
>
> I suppose that depends on how you define "anti-Catholic," but the
> proponents of this legislation (all Catholics, so far as I can
> tell) are adopting the *political* stance of supporting the lay
> Catholics who have been critical of church-closing decisions. More
> votes in the pews than in the pulpits, I guess.
>
>
>
> I think this raises a very interesting question going well beyond
> the specific example. Many people who have studied abortion note
> that women are basically split on the issue, which makes it
> problematic to argue that those of us who support reproductive
> choice (as I do) are "pro-women" and those against are "anti."
> Similarly, one of the things that Clarence Thomas and Ward Connerly
> have taught us is that African-Americans do not necessarily support
> affirmative action and, indeed, are willing to argue that it is
> functionally anti-Black to support it. I don't agree, but I'm not
> sure that I'm any longer willing to say that opponents of
> affirmative action are "anti-African American." If one accepts
> Catholic theology, then I suppose that the "pro-Catholic" position
> is indeed the pulpit (and ultimately the Papacy) rather than what
> the laity happen to profess, but that is obviously a tendentious
> argument (for most of us). With regard to almost all Protestant
> denominations (or Judaism), there would certainly be no reason at
> all to reject the laity in favor of ministers or rabbis.
>
>
> sandy
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> To post, send message to Religionlaw at lists.ucla.edu
> To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see
> http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw
>
> Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed
> as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages
> that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members
> can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
--
Prof. Steven D. Jamar vox: 202-806-8017
Howard University School of Law fax: 202-806-8428
2900 Van Ness Street NW
mailto:sjamar at law.howard.edu
Washington, DC 20008 http://www.law.howard.edu/faculty/pages/jamar
Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime,
Therefore, we are saved by hope.
Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any
immediate context of history;
Therefore, we are saved by faith.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone.
Therefore, we are saved by love.
No virtuous act is quite a virtuous from the standpoint of our friend
or foe as from our own;
Therefore, we are saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.
Reinhold Neibuhr
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.ucla.edu/pipermail/religionlaw/attachments/20050817/ff7ae832/attachment.html
More information about the Religionlaw
mailing list